Saturday. That was as long as I waited before I made my move. A full week of forcing myself to go to school, keeping my head down and dealing with the Trio there, then going home and spending my time working on cape stuff. Trips to the library to use their internet, tailoring my costume, practicing my power, all to prepare for tonight.
Testing my power was inconvenient now. I could have gone back to the Trainyard, found some other spot to practice, but Trainwreck had spoiled that. Without knowing exactly what was considered his territory, I couldn't go back there without worrying that he might come along and put me right back in the situation I'd been in on our first encounter. So I had to clear him out.
Maybe that wasn't being fair to him. He'd been there first, and he could hardly claim the entirety of the Trainyard as his territory. Hell, maybe the reason I'd been able to practice there in peace was because gangsters and vagrants knew it was his turf and avoided it. Still, maybes didn't outweigh the fact that he was a villain. Personal stakes aside, he was someone I should take down. And as a bonus, turning him over to the authorities might help serve as an apology for the whole "attacking a Ward" thing
Even better, he was my best option for my first cape fight. Almost every other villainous cape in the city had backup either in the form of more capes or a gang. There were exceptions, but none of those were really good options. Circus was a thief and general mayhem maker, with no real area of operation. Without a way to track her down or catch her in the act I couldn't do much to deal with her. Grue was a mercenary who moved into the city last summer, but that meant when he showed up it was because someone hired him, not to mention the rumors on the forums that he'd joined up with a few other capes to form a team. He wasn't worth the risk involved, both explicit and implicit. Purity… I wasn't sure about Purity. Her wiki page was locked with a trio of question marks where most capes listed team allegiances, or at least hero/villain status, with a lengthy forum thread full of bickering about whether she was a member of E88, a splinter element, or an independent vigilante with old gang ties. Whatever the truth was, she had enough firepower to level a building and the mobility to do so from far out of reach from any counterattack I could make. I'd be avoiding her if I could.
Trainwreck was the perfect target. No affiliations, which meant no backup. He operated out of the Trainyard, which meant I didn't have to worry about wrecking property or him trying to take a hostage. His armor gave me a target, something I could wreck and break to render him powerless without actually hurting him, a task my beetleings were literally made for. And all the additional research I'd done indicated that while Trainwreck was tough and strong, he wasn't particularly fast. He wouldn't be getting away.
In my more introspective moments, when I let myself slip into thinking about how I felt, I acknowledged that it was a little personal. Being a cape was an escape, a way to distance myself from the way I was at school, at the mercy of those stronger than me. That meeting with him had shaken that. I'd been put back in that position, where physical harm loomed but was still secondary to the more abstract threat. At school it was being ostracized and without a place to turn to, in the Trainyard it had been the potential of exposure.
I took a deep breath, let it out. I didn't want tonight to be about that, about me. I'd looked him up, I knew what he'd done, the people he'd hurt. He was mostly guilty of theft with a lot of destruction of property to go along with it, but also quite a bit of assault and battery with some vandalism thrown in. Tonight could be about them, the people he'd wronged. It wouldn't undo what he'd already done, but it would make sure he wouldn't be doing more.
It was nearly midnight before I got back out of bed to pull my costume on. While the past week had given me a chance to work on it, it still wasn't great, but it was better than it had been on the first night. I'd cut and sewed the bandanna into the hood, making it more of a cohesive mask. In the times after school before Dad got home from work I'd used the dyes I bought last weekend to recolor the whole thing. I'd had to make up the excuse of an art project to explain to Dad why I had stains on my hands and arms, but it was worth it. The hoodie and jeans were now a mottled assortment of various shades of grey and dark blue, with a little bit of the same effect on the less-absorbent material of my gloves and boots. It wasn't much, but it was what pushed it from 'generic clothes' to 'actual costume.' A shitty, low budget costume, but still a costume.
I still hadn't done anything with the red. I'd gotten it with the intention of making some sort of insignia, but I didn't have any idea what that would actually look like. I hadn't figured out a name for myself yet, so something based on that wasn't yet an option. My beetleings and my savages were too different for any one symbol to represent them, so that was out. For now the dye sat at the back of a shelf to be decided on later.
Once I was dressed in my costume, I took a moment to try and center myself. I tried to forget the Trio and everything I'd put up with for the past week. I tried to forget Dad's ongoing arguments with various school representatives. Those were the problems of Taylor the civilian, and right now I needed to be Taylor the cape.
Under my breath I whispered the mantra I'd begun repeating whenever I tried to make the shift to the cape mindset. "Never the victim."
I set out from home towards the Trainyard. Riding the bus wasn't an option given the time and my costume, so I was left to make my way on foot. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, or even would have been a week ago. Over the past week I'd started waking up at the same time as Dad so I could go for a run. Apparently those people who talk about the 'euphoric high' of running were making stuff up, or I just wasn't doing it right, because it didn't feel very great.
Still, it was both necessary and useful. My legs still ached after my runs, but I no longer had to deal with a burning in my lungs after I stopped. It had also helped break in my boots. Wearing them to school wasn't an option, I'd be running the risk of the Trio ruining them somehow, so my morning runs were the only time I could use them. It wasn't quite enough for them to fully be comfortable, but they fit me better than before.
At least half an hour passed by the time I actually got to the Trainyard. By then I was tired, enough that I gave myself a few minutes rest once I slipped past the first fence. It wouldn't do to burn myself out because I refused to accept my limits. I took the time to collect my thoughts the way I couldn't when I was focused on running, reviewing my plan.
The Trainyard was a big area to cover when looking for one person, even if that person was ten plus feet tall and wearing power armor. I knew a general location to start looking, but I had to get there first. Complicating that was the Trainyard's piecemeal layout. If I was lucky and knew the right ways to go, I could find stretches of track that went uninterrupted for several blocks. If I didn't, I could end up in an area where I had to circumvent five different fences just to cover as much ground as I would walking from my house to the sidewalk. Luckily, I had a solution to at least get past the obstacles.
I reached for my pool of energy. It didn't have its full charge, but it was at more than half. If I could have, I would have been going into this with a full charge, but there was no way to work that timing. After Monday I'd learned my lesson about making sure to keep my power in check. Being prepared in case of an emergency would have been useful, but it wasn't worth being prepared if the Trio had another shocker like the flute up their sleeves that hit me hard enough for my power to flare up.
My encounter with Trainwreck had actually given me the solution to that particular problem. Unsummoning the savage had returned half of the energy I'd used to summon it, but not all. So for the last week, every day after Dad left for work and before I went out to the bus stop, I spent a few minutes summoning and unsummoning savages until the pool of energy ran dry. It recharged part of its energy over the course of the school day, but little enough and slowly enough that it was slower to rouse into unconscious action and easier to suppress when it did flare.
Letting it charge up without using it yesterday and today wasn't enough to fill it, but it was at least three-quarters full. In any case, it was enough. I though about the plan I'd come up with, focusing on what I'd need in order to accomplish it. My power surged to life as quickly as I'd ever felt it. A second later I was faced with two savages and three beetleings.
I had my minions, I had a plan, now I just needed to get the execution right. I sent out the beetleings, sending them scramble up over or squeeze through the chain-link fences, each heading in the same general direction but spreading out in the process. They would be my scouts, doubling back and giving certain specific hand signals depending on what they saw. With their small size and penchant for sticking to unlit and cluttered areas, I was fairly confident they'd see anyone before they were seen in turn.
Beetleings sent out I moved to follow, heading in the same general direction I knew my practice area had been. One of my savages rushed ahead of me, climbing the fence with ease. The other moved ahead as well, but didn't climb over. Instead it dropped to one knee, lacing its fingers to provide me a step. I took it and the savage moved, standing and lifting to add force to my movement and let me cross the fence far more easily than I could have on my own.
When I landed on the other side the first savage had already positioned itself to aid me at the next fence. Behind me, the second climbed over and ran, quickly passing me and clambering over the next fence so that it would be ready to aid me with the obstacle after.
I felt a thrill of pride. Thinking up a plan was one thing, but actually carrying it out successfully was another. It felt right, a coordinated team to help and support me. Maybe not as good as actual allies might have been, but good enough. As an extra measure of pride, I hadn't even had to speak a single order.
After all the deliberation and self-directed debate I'd gone through about whether I could actually mentally command my minions or if they just wanted similar things as me, the solution had ended up being laughably simple: I'd just tried to command a savage to raise its left hand without saying the command. And it had worked.
The connections were the key. I could focus on one or more, singling out particular minions to give particular commands. Being confined to my house for the testing, I hadn't exactly had a lot of opportunity to test the complexity and strength of my ability to command them, but it was good enough to make them my personal fence-climbing team. I was still going to stick to spoken commands though, at least when anyone was around to see me. Being able to silently command my minions from a distance was a card I wanted to keep up my sleeve.
Still, there was more to the connections than I'd been able to properly grok. Through them I could feel my minions' positions relative to me, which helped keep track of them and determine which I wanted to command. They were also the passageways through which I sent my commands, something I suspected and had then confirmed happened even when I was supposedly giving them commands through speech. But there was still a big part of it I couldn't wrap my head around, what I'd taken to calling the information stream. I'd spent time trying to immerse myself in it, from beetleings and savages alike, but every time I couldn't quite get what it was trying to tell me. I had the sense that I needed some sort of context to try and properly understand it, some factor or way of looking at it that I was missing.
These thoughts filled my head as I moved through the Trainyard. Occasionally a beetleing would return to me, but only to signal that there were vagrants ahead and guide me to avoid them. I doubted any ordinary scrap scavenger would try and fight me when I was so clearly a cape, but any commotion they caused could tip off Trainwreck to my presence.
It took another twenty minutes to reach the area where I'd been training my power before Trainwreck drove me off. I frowned under my mask at the thought. No, I didn't like that phrasing. 'Drove me off' implied retreat, capitulation on my part to cede him the area, but here I was again. Forced me to withdraw, maybe.
It was even more wrecked than when I'd left. The caboose had been fully tipped over, with the parts where the wheels connected to the train car removed, and another section of the fence had been torn up. I unsummoned one of the savages and summoned a beetling in its place, perfectly consuming the energy I'd regained from the savage. The fallen fences tempted me to try and track the villain by his trail, but that didn't feel like a good idea. The Trainyard was Trainwreck's home turf, which meant he probably knew the ins and outs of the place. More than that, spending time here meant he had time to prepare. False trails, traps, secret paths, a dozen other possibilities that meant trying to follow his trail directly wouldn't work.
Instead I sent my beetleings out in a spiraling pattern. It would be slow, but it was thorough. They'd find him if he was in my range. If they didn't… I wasn't really sure what else to do. I could keep moving and searching, but the Trainyard was a big place. Trying to search the whole thing like this would be a fool's errand.
I was tired enough that I wanted to sit down, but the night was cold. Instead I paced, trying to do something to stay active and keep myself a little warmer. My savage stood silently by as I moved. I considered trying to cuddle it for warmth, but immediately stamped out the idea. If I was freezing to death in a blizzard, maybe. But unless things were that bad, I really did not want to cuddle a monster whose brain was apparently composed of little more than loyalty to me, even if it would be the pragmatic thing to do. That was a level of desperation for basic affection I was not willing to cross. Though if it was seemingly unbothered by the cold despite not wearing clothes, it was probably pretty warm…
Fuck, I was lonely.
I was fortunately distracted from my contemplation of my own loneliness when I felt a change in one of my beetleings. Through my connection to it I could feel its location, and right now it had broken its pattern of movement and was heading straight back towards me. I turned towards the direction it was coming from, bouncing a bit on the balls of my feet in anticipation. I'd only given my beetlings one criteria to return to me for: finding Trainwreck.
It was only a few minutes later that it arrived in my little clearing. I was already moving to meet it as it squeezed through a gap between two sections of fencing. The moment it was in position to do so the beetleing held its arms straight out to either side, making a 'T' with its body. The signal for finding Trainwreck.
A grin split my face. A quick command sent the beetling out again to lead me to him, while a second recalled my other three beetleings. This approach was quieter now, more cautious in case Trainwreck was on the lookout. I was more nervous than I'd been when I'd set out last Sunday to attack Merchants. That had been a mission of sabotage, even if I had gone wrong, but what I was doing now would deliberately start a fight, one against a parahuman no less. I couldn't help but second guess myself, even as I continued forward.
Gradually a sound reached my ears. The clang of metal on metal, accompanied by the occasional set of heavy footsteps. It had to be Trainwreck. I could see the glow of light up ahead, from both the direction the sound seemed to be coming from and the direction my beetleing was leading me. I commanded the beetleing to stop as I looked around for a train car or building, something I could climb for a better view without getting too close.
A nearby boxcar met my needs, and with the help of my savage to boost me up I crawled up onto the roof. I moved forward on my belly, using my hands and knees to push myself forward as best I could without rising up. It was awkward and the metal roof under me was freeing even through my clothes, but it would be worth it if it meant I could get closer to Trainwreck without being noticed.
It was worth it. The boxcar was one of several in a larger open area. Train cars formed a ragged ring around a larger empty space. Some were clearly off their tracks, making it obvious someone had moved them to make this clearing. That someone was currently stomping around in the open area in the middle of the ring, moving back and forth between a blazing bonfire that had been lit in the middle and a pile of scrap metal that sat off to one side.
Just looking at it, it was clear this was Trainwreck's home. One of the train cars had one of its sides peeled off and reattached as a metal awning, making its interior into a crude lean-to. A cheap plastic picnic table off to one side was cluttered with wrenches, screwdrivers, and other tools, while besides that was the pile of parts Trainwreck was currently concerning himself with. He was still dressed in his armor as he worked, grabbing parts out of the pile and thrusting them into the fire for a few seconds before pulling them back out to twist or pound with his fist. It didn't seem like the fire was hot enough to actually melt any of the metal, and he definitely wasn't keeping them in the fire long enough to really heat up, but he seemed pleased with his progress. Several smaller piles sat beside the fire, without any rhyme or reason to their sorting, and each piece was dropped into one once he was satisfied with his work.
I wasn't sure what exactly he was doing, but in the short term it didn't really matter. He was distracted, and that was the important part. I tweaked the commands to my beetleings, drawing them toward me in a way that would see them skirt around this clearing and get closer without risking being spotted. Though maybe that wasn't necessary. I watched as Trainwreck rummaged around in the pile with a clatter of metal, finally pulling out what looked like a car's gearbox before returning to the fire, gravel crunching under every heavy footstep. If he could hear anything farther away than five feet, I'd be surprised, not to mention what the fire would be doing to how his eyes adjusted to the dark.
Still, it wouldn't do to underestimate him. His armor looked clunky, but for all I knew it had sonar or night vision in the goggles. I relaxed when my beetlings finally approached and he gave no sign of having noticed them. Either he was excellent at hiding his reactions, or he had reasonably human senses and just didn't notice them
But it wouldn't do to tempt fate by waiting around so close to him. I had to take him down soon, and that meant disabling his armor. It would have been easier if I'd caught him sleeping but I could still work with this. He wouldn't exactly stand there and let the beetleings take his armor to pieces, however fast they worked, But that was why I had the savage.
I sent my commands, moving my minions into position. The four beetleings circled around the campsite and crept closer to Trainwreck, using the flickering light of the fire and the deeper shadows cast by train cars and piles of parts to hide their approach. I watched anxiously, afraid of the moment where Trainwreck would look in the wrong place at the wrong time and spot them. But he didn't. Maybe it was the heavy tinted welding goggles he still wore or maybe the suit's movements muffled sound, but he didn't notice their approach. They got closer and closer, until they were lurking within ten feet of the pile of scrap Trainwreck was using. The ambush was prepared. Now I just needed to make an opening.
Another command to the savage and it circled around to the other side of the clearing. I paused, trying to calm myself. It didn't really help, now I was just anxious and broken off my train of though enough to really feel how cold the train car I was laying on was. I'd come all this way and tracked him down, now it was time to act.
My savage walked forward. It made a beeline for Trainwreck without even trying to hide. I'd sent it forward when Trainwreck had his back turned on its direction to pull something from his scrap heap, so by the time he turned back around and noticed it, it had already closed a good third of the distance between them.
Trainwreck started a bit when he saw the savage, the motion magnified by the suit. I could only imagine what this looked like to him. A monstrous figure approaching you in your home at night, seemingly appearing out of nowhere? I wouldn't have turned my back on it.
It seemed Trainwreck felt the same way. He kept his gaze locked onto it as he carefully set the part he was holding down on the ground, though to his credit he recovered from his surprise quickly enough. "Who the fuck are you?" he yelled.
The savage didn't respond. That was good. If it had spoken to a stranger after all the futile efforts I'd made to get my minions to talk to me, I would have been pissed.
It still kept walking. Only half the space of the clearing between them now. Trainwreck didn't like that. The arm of his suit shifted and the sphere-tipped tube he'd threatened me with rose into place on his forearm. He raised his arm to point it squarely at the savage.
"I'm warning you," Trainwreck shouted. "Don't come closer, you little shit!"
It kept moving closer. I sent out another command to my beetleings, sending them inching forward to close in on the oblivious villain.
"Let's talk for a second, yeah?" Trainwreck continued. "You ain't looking too hot, pal. You remember anything, just wake up here?"
That part confused me. What was he talking about? He clearly thought the savage was a person, albeit a monstrous or deformed one. Not an unreasonable assumption given Case 53s and the whole Shifter power classification. But why was he asking if it remembered anything? Nothing I'd seen mentioned Shifter powers came with loss of memory. There was some stuff floating around about Case 53s that mentioned it, but there were enough theories about them that I'd have too look more into it to know anything for sure.
The savage was still moving forward. I hadn't commanded it to stop while I thought, so it was still following my instruction to approach him. It was less than fifteen feet away from him now. Despite his threat, Trainwreck still hadn't attacked it. Why? Was it fear? Sympathy? Could I exploit it.
I directed my savage to grab a length of rebar from the pile of scrap nearest to it. It pulled out the length of metal, hefting it like a sword. Whether it was seeing it arm itself or because it messed with his stuff, that was enough to wear out Trainwreck's goodwill.
There was a loud, dull whump from the tube on his arm and the sphere shot out towards my savage. With the way he'd been pointing it I'd expected it to be some kind of ranged weapon, so I was already directing my savage to dodge. It threw itself to one side as the sphere shot past it, a length of chain trailing behind to connect it to the tube.
More commands. My savage rushed forward, the piece of rebar held out to swing towards Trainwreck. Trainwreck was already yanking his arm back, some mechanism within the arm of his suit whirring as it drew the chain back it. The motion and the retraction caused the sphere to fly towards my savage's head from behind. If it had just been the savage, the trick might have caught it. But from my perspective overseeing the clearing, it was obvious to see.
A command saw the savage swaying to the side and ducking down, the sphere whizzing harmlessly past it to slot back into the tube. Only five feet separated the two now. Trainwreck eyed the savage warily. The savage shifted the rebar in its grip, flexing its fanged jaws at him. It looked like a stalemate.
But I wasn't interested in playing fair. I sent a command to my beetleings even as I egged my savage on. The savage lunged for Trainwreck, thrusting its improvised weapon to try and catch his face with the point of it. He brought up his other arm, panels springing from the sides of his forearm to form a blocky shield. The tip of the rebar scraped across the shield with the harsh sound of metal on metal. Trainwreck was already bringing up his other arm to fire his flail gun into my savage's gut at point blank.
The beetleings were already on him. He was probably a good ten feet tall in the armor, and the beetleings were only the size of toddlers, but they were hard to ignore. The four leapt onto his legs from behind, quickly climbing his body. Two clambered onto his back and began prying at the plating surrounding the smokestack protruding from his suit's metal hunchback. Another climbed onto his shoulder and tried to reach into the joint where the arm of his armor met the body. The last actually climbed around onto his chest, fiddling with something just below his collar.
For his part, Trainwreck reacted the same way someone would if rats started crawling on their body. He staggered back from the savaged, shaking his body to try and dislodge them and flailing at the ones on his chest and shoulder.
"Fuck! What the fuck!? Get off'a me, you-"
The savage came in again with the rebar. He barely got his shield up in time to keep himself from getting hit across the face. I winced a bit at that, refining the command I sent to my savage. A tire iron from a beetleing would be bad to hit someone in the head, a length of rebar swung by a human-sixed creature would be worse. This was meant to be a capture, not a murder. I kept a close eye on the savage anyways, prepared to immediately give it a new command if it seemed like it would do something too dangerous.
Its next hit came when Trainwreck still had his shield raised to protect his face, thus blocking his view of it. The rebar clanged into the side of his knee. There wasn't any visible affect from the hit, but that was fine. Trainwreck cursed in frustration, lowering his shield and bringing up the arm with the flail gun.
A command immediately sent the beetling on his chest crawling higher to get in his face. He cursed again and tried to grab at it. The arm with the flail gun went wide and I seized on the advantage. I commanded my savage to duck low and close, thrusting the rebar up like a spear into the armpit of the suit. To be flexible it had to have less armor, so I was hoping it could do more damage that way. There was nothing dramatic like the arm falling limp, but there was the metallic sound of something breaking or being forced out of place.
The beetling on his face scurried away to the small of his back, leaving Trainwreck grabbing at the place it had been and uncovering his face for my savage to take a swing at him. No rebar, just a clenched three-fingered punch across the jaw. I knew my savages were stronger than me, even if I hadn't tested it my having them punch me, so I knew that would hurt him.
Trainwreck cursed again, flailing at the savage with one arm while he took a half-step back, shielding his face once more. All the while, the beetleings worked. This was my plan. Keep him off balance, torn between two threats. If he focused on trying to get the beetleings off him, he left himself open to attack by the savage. If he focused on fighting the savage, the beetleings could work unimpeded. Whether by dismantling his armor or beating him down, I could win.
Trainwreck tried to keep the shield in front of his face while he groped at his shoulder with his other hand. I just had the beetleing lower itself down to cling to the back of his shoulders. From what I could tell, his armor was heavily armored but not flexible. His fingers scraped across the metal of his shoulder, but couldn't reach far enough back to grab the beetleing. At the same time, I had my savage up its attack. It hammered away at his shield with its rebar, forcing Trainwreck to keep it raised to protect himself. Of course, if he moved the shield away he'd find himself perfectly safe. The order was to attack his shield, after all, giving the illusion that if he lowered his guard he'd get his head caved in without actually risking a homicide. Though if he did move it, it'd be a matter of an instant to set the savage to just punching him in the face.
Regardless of the actual threat to him, it kept him off guard and distracted from the beetleings. There were now three working at the mechanism on his back, with the fourth at the back of one shoulder. Based on what they'd done to the car, I'd expected them to have him in pieces by now. Apparently not. The occasional piece of plating of wiring fell away, but for the most part they seemed focused on just getting into his armor.
His armor was armor, after all, meant to be protective and durable. I should have expected this obstacle. And with a week to prepare, I had. The idea had occurred to me that his armor might have redundancies or booby traps, something that would make disassembling it impossible without spending hours and numerous beetleings in the effort. But apart from his unarmored face, there was one glaring weak point on his suit.
I sent the beetleings down off of him and out to grab things from the area around them. A length of PVC pipe, a chunk of rubber tire, a fistful of nails. It took them only a few seconds to grab their things and quickly make their way back to Trainwreck.
He was forcing the savage back, able to focus on the fight without the beetleings to distract him. A wide swing with his shield arm clipped the savage in the shoulder, sending it to the ground with the force of the blow. A second later I had to make it roll to the side to avoid the flail fired right where its head had been.
Trainwreck saw the beetleings coming this time and spun towards them, holding out the arm with the still-extended flail to swing at them in an arc. I was able to make most of them backpedal quickly enough to avoid getting hit, but my timing was off for one. The head of the flail hit it and it immediately collapsed back into nonexistence.
I winced. It wouldn't be hard to summon a replacement, but with the sound and light, I was concerned about drawing his attention. I held off, biding my time until he was more distracted.
I had the savage lunge forward to bring itself around in front of Trainwreck and swing the rebar at his face again. Again Trainwreck got up his shield in time to avoid getting hit, but it served its purpose. His attempted offense against the beetleings had been interrupted. That was enough time for them to close the distance and start climbing.
This time they didn't stop at his back or shoulders, but kept climbing up, ascending the smokestack that rose from his back. It had only been letting out a trickle of smoke when I'd first seen him, but now it was letting out a continuous plume of grey-black smoke. And it was into this opening that the beetleings threw their cargo.
I didn't know about how engines or cars worked, but a smokestack was a simple enough concept to grasp. A normal one anyways. His suit was Tinker made, so I doubted it actually ran on coal or gasoline. But that smokestack was there for a reason, whether it was to vent exhaust, heat, or something else. And if I blocked it, clogged it with random debris, that could screw up the whole mechanism.
Trainwreck seemed to know it too. "No no no, fuck you, no!"
He tried to reach up and grab the beetleings but they were already racing back down his body to grab more things. I judged him as sufficiently distracted enough and called up my power. Not a replacement beetleing, but another savage. One wasn't enough to keep him distracted anymore when the beetleings had to keep climbing on and off of him.
The sound of my summoning seemed deafeningly loud to me as a savage formed on the ground beside the train, just under me. It might not have been quite that loud, but it was enough to catch Trainwreck's attention. He whirled in my direction just in time to see a second savage sprinting towards him. It slowed in its dash on my command, just in time to snatch a sledgehammer from his table of tools, then it was on him.
"Two of you fucks?"Trainwreck yelled.
He fired the flail gun at the hammer wielding savage as it engaged him. I had it dodge to the side, while simultaneously commanding the other savage to step up and thrust its rebar into the tube of the flail gun. It lodged and the savage stepped away without a weapon. Trainwreck tried to retract the chain, but all he got was a clunking noise. I took the opportunity to have the hammer savage step up and swing the hammer at his chin.
Trainwreck managed to make a clumsy hop back, which only brought him closer to the three beetleings that had been approaching him while he was distracted. Trainwreck shook his body, trying to dislodge them, but they kept climbing to dump another load of debris down his smokestack.
I sent the hammer savage in for another attack. He blocked this one with the shield this time, giving the other savage time to grab another piece of rebar. The smoke was coming out of the smokestack in puffs and patches now, but he didn't seem to be affected. No matter. I had time to wear him down.
I felt a thrill as I coordinated the assault. Watching from a distance, picking off weaknesses, coordinating strengths. This was the kind of thing I'd planned for the strike on the Merchants, but successful, well executed.
Watching Trainwreck I got a sense of his movements. His suit had power to it, but it was jerky in its movements. There were openings, gaps where he couldn't quite swing a fist or stomp quickly enough. Those were opportunities to attack. The savage with the hammer seemed more at ease with the weapon than the one with the rebar and its tool carried more crushing weight, so that was the one for riskier plays. A strike to hit the raised metal collar around his head, threatening but not really dangerous. A blow to strike a finger from the side and bend it out of place. The other had the advantage of reach with the rebar, as well as the ability to trust with the point. That one was sent after joints, gaps in armor, targets a blunt instrument couldn't hit.
Trainwreck was fighting back, but his flail gun had been broken, leaving him with a fifteen foot chain and a weight at the end. He'd tried to swing it like a flail a few times, but with the unwieldly length it was all but useless against the savages at close quarters.
And all the while, my beetleings worked. Trainwreck tried stomping on them, throwing things at them, moving away, but my savages made him pay for his distraction each time. Scrap metal, rubber, wood, and anything else I saw was sent down the smokestack. After the first few rounds, one or two beetleings each time was sent back with fistfuls of sand or gravel to make sure the gaps in the blockage would be stuffed tight.
It was working. Minute after minute the fight dragged on. The column of smoke slowed to puffs, then to the occasional burst, and eventually to a few pencil thin streams. Trainwreck was clearly suffering for it. By the time only a few thin lines of smoke came from the smokestack, he was moving like he was underwater.
His face looked pained as he swung at a savage, only for it to step back easily and avoid the hit. Trainwreck wasn't so lucky. His suit seized up halfway through the motion and he toppled forward, falling to one knee. Things hissed and creaked in his legs but he didn't, or couldn't, rise.
"Fuck!" he yelled. Yeah, he definitely sounded in pain.
The thought crossed my mind that if the smokestack was to vent heat and I'd just blocked it off, I might have been cooking him in his own armor. I shook the thought off. I didn't like that I might have been forcing him into that position to get a win, but I couldn't take it back now. And even if I'd thought of it before, I still probably would have done the same thing. Beating someone to the point where you could arrest them wouldn't be much better, but that was the reality of fighting villains.
Besides, he'd chosen to stay and fight. Maybe he was being territorial or maybe he just didn't think he was fast enough to get away, but he could have tried.
Trainwreck tried to rise again, failed again. He yelled a string of words in a language I didn't know. Still, the tone made their meaning clear. He was beaten, and none too happy about it. Now I just had to pry him out of his armor. With time to work, it probably wouldn't take the beetleings too long. After that, I could order a savage to drag him to the edge of the Trainyard where I could call the cops and have him picked up.
I ordered my beetleings forward to start disassembling the armor around him when his chest plate exploded. A cloud of smoke billowed out as the plate was blasted free, bouncing off the ground and slamming into a savage hard enough to send it to the ground with the sound of cracking bone. In the midst of it, Trainwreck tumbled free from his armor.
It was hard to see in the midst of the smoke, but he seemed… off. Then he began to move and the reason became clear. It was his head, but poking out of a fridge-sized metal cocoon. Legs telescoped out of the bottom, with wheels where there should be feet and another set of wheels built into the knee joints. Arms unfolded, little more than long struts of metal with a few joints, ending in simple metal pincers with another small wheel set where the two 'fingers' met.
I swore under my breath. The bastard has a backup suit built into his main one. I reached out to my beetleings and savages alike and commanded them to attack.
Trainwreck moved forward with rolling steps as all the pieces of his suit extended and slotted into place. He leaned and the movement caused him to slide rapidly to the side, dodging between the savages and beetleings and putting a good ten feet of distance between them. The movement unbalanced him and he had to put out one long arm to catch himself, dropping to one knee in the process. The plates of the main body shifted and rearranged, becoming something more like a wedge, more aerodynamic.
My minions kept following my command and moved after him. He glanced at them, and without moving from his position, shot forward. If he hadn't run because he wasn't fast enough before, that definitely wasn't the case now. He was out of the edge of the clearing in a second and kept going.
As he left, I heard him yell something back at me. Well, back at my minions, but by proxy at me. Again it was that other language, but again I didn't need to know the exact translation to understand what he was saying.
I swore again and hauled myself up, ordering my savages to come help me down. After everything I'd done so far, after how close I'd come, there was no way I was going to let him get away. Sending my beetleings out ahead of me again, I gave chase.